Well, We Live In New York Now.

Do you want to know how to move to Manhattan? Here's what we did.

Step One: get rid of all your stuff. Couch, dressers, your bed, dinner table, pretty much everything. If you haven't used it in the past year or two, just toss it.

Step Two: arrive in NYC, pay more than you ever thought you would be able to pay to rent a one bedroom apartment.

Take a look at all. of. your. stuff.

Step Three: Stop and ponder why you dragged half this crap in a moving van, up five flights of stairs, and into a tiny apartment that only has one closet.

No, not one living room closet and one bedroom closet and one pantry and one bathroom closet, ONE closet.

Step Four: get rid of more stuff. Like, a LOT more stuff. Books and moving boxes and more crap than we thought possible. And definitely get rid of the bikes.

(I know, I know...our hearts are broken. We love our bikes! But we have to store them inside the apartment, we have to drag them up and down several flights of stairs just to use them, we have to buy more expensive (and HEAVY) locks for them, and in the end they'll probably just get stolen anyway.)

Once we did that, then we still had to deal with the rest of the crap we still had. No one told us that moving into such a small space would not really feel like unpacking, just REpacking. Storing things under the bed, above the cabinets, under the sink, and packaging it all so it's relatively accessible but full to the brim. 

^^ Getting risers for the bed = one of the best ideas ever. 

The hardest thing about unpacking repacking was the constant moving of stuff. Stuff from one side of the room, to the other side of the room, to the other room, to the kitchen. There wasn't enough space to set it all to the side and work on one area--we constantly had to move the bikes to get to the closet, then move them back to move the couch in, then move the couch to fit the other furniture we had. It was like playing Tetris with our stuff, all day long. For three solid days.

After much blood, sweat, tears of frustration, hair pulling, and occasional grouchiness (guilty as charged), we did it. It took us hours of organization, sorting, compromising, and reordering, not to mention multiple trips to IKEA and BB&B. We finally have a fully functioning, organized apartment, just in time for me to start at the Apple Store and Tim to start his LLM program.

Tim and I both agree: there's something to be said for living in a small space. We had a massive apartment in Nashville, almost 1600 square feet. We had a whole other bedroom that we hardly ever used, two bathrooms, and an office. It was a fantastic apartment and we miss it. We miss the space, and the washer/dryer, and the central air and heat. 

On the other hand, we are absolutely in love with our apartment.

Even though there's no A/C. (Tim hates that part.)

Even though it's on the fifth floor with no elevator. (I hate that part.)

It's cozy and just the right size, now that we have a place for everything. There's no room to spare, but it feels just right. We are quite enamored.

(Special thanks to Vika, who somehow managed to photobomb almost every. single. photo.)

^^ The view from our window, looking toward Central Park.

^^ Looking the other way, toward Riverside Park.

Moving to Manhattan is something I would never want to do again...but now that we've done it, I'm so glad we did. Tim loves it, Vika loves it, and even I love it. Seriously. Even though I thought I would hate it.

Now, who is going to come visit first??